[kee124]

Please help as I am out of my depth. My partner impulse bought this because he is easily seduced but it seems we need Freesat- and that looks rubbish. We cant send it back as it is over 7 days so:

Will it record/work if I sign up to freesat from sky intead of normal freesat?
Also we already have a sky dish from the previous owner could we hook that up to it and not have to pay the installation charge. Should I throttle or nag?

[bonzobanana]

Wow! I limit my impulse buys to no more than £20. I'm pretty sure it will work off your existing satellite dish assuming that dish is for the normal sky digital service.

I don't know your full circumstances but it does sound like the panasonic isn't exactly what you were expecting. Is there no chance of a refund?

[Gavtech]

Note that this unit is a dual freesat tuner unit that requires a dual feed from the satellite dish, albeit it can operate from a single feed, partially crippled.


I'm assuming the box is open and you have access to the manual.


If so , have a look at the notes at the bottom of page 11 which deal with the various options regarding these matters.

[kee124]

Thank you both for your reply. I have had a look at the manual(scary) and I am sure I can use freesat sky which has slightly better channels over the bbc/itv. As we are only a few days over the 7 day period I am still hoping that over the weekend he can speak to someone high up, use his angry voice and get a refund.

[Treborvfr]

The Freesat service is provided from exactly the same satellites as the SKY free channels (and, indeed, the pay for view channels) so your SKY dish and LNB will work with Freesat although, as already pointed out, to get full use of the recorder you'll need a minimum of a dual LNB to provide two feeds (you can get these for less than £20).

In fact the free channels you get on SKY are exactly the same channels you pick up on Freesat (i.e. same satellite, frequency, polorisation, band, etc). I'm not sure how the Panasonic works but if you are not picking up all the free channels there should be a facility that will allow you to manually add the channels you want.

Bob

[Archie Fax]

Originally Posted by kee124

I am still hoping that over the weekend he can speak to someone high up, use his angry voice and get a refund.

Seeing as it is down to the shops discretion to give a refund, I wouldn't use an angry voice myself or they might tell you where to go.

[kee124]

I haven't hooked the machine up yet- I thought it was a different service because Freesat bbc has HD channels and sky does not. Also sky has 240 channels and the over one 140.

I spoke to sky this morning and they said that having the dish would not be enough - I would need to have a digi-box.

Thanks for the advice. I'll tell him to ditch the angry voice and try his sexy husky voice- it does nothing for me but its worth a try.

[Steve N]

If you decide it's not for you and you can't get a refund I may be interested if you put it up for sale in the classifieds.

[Treborvfr]

Originally Posted by kee124

I thought it was a different service because Freesat bbc has HD channels and sky does not. Also sky has 240 channels and the over one 140. ]

SKY has HD channels as well (BBC included), but you need a SKY HD box to get them. I'm not sure, but I think the additional 100 or so channels are available to freesat boxes but you may have to add some of them manually. These additional channels may also included all of the regional BBC and regional indepedant channels.

Actually, I've just remembered that some of the free channels may still be encoded in which case they would need a SKY box to receive them (and a 'non-subscription' viewing card to recieve them FOC) but, IMHO, I don't think there are many. I think you'd find most of the free stuff that you can't receive with a Freesat box you wouldn't want to watch anyway. Check out the Freesat website, if the channels they list there are everything you want to watch why not stick with your Panasonic, by all accounts it's a great recorder and it's on my shopping list.
I would only consider going to SKY if you wanted to receive some of their subscription services, if this is the case have a look at their HD+ packages.

Bob

[kee124]

Thanks Bob this makes sense now.

[JH4]

I guess you need to decide what you want it for.
Sky: have to pay each month. You may not want all the stuff they broadcast.
Freesat: Free HD channels and also a lot of stuff you won't want to watch, but a once-only payment, and you can edit out adverts and store programmes onto disc to keep, including Hi Def stuff, which Sky won't let you do.
I know which I prefer...

[chrisray]

I'm no expert, kee124, but, based on my experience, you have nothing to worry about, subject to possibly spending a bit more money on your dish.

We have one dish, originally for Sky+ only. I then subscribed to Sky+ HD for downstairs use and had the Sky+ box moved upstairs to another telly. That used up the four lines on the dish. Later, I wanted to buy the DMR-BS850, mainly to go with my Panasonic HD camcorder. However, that would have been hard to justify if I couldn't use the two built-in Freesat tuners. So I contacted a local Sky dish installer (I didn't go anywhere near Sky themselves). They changed the box thing at the end of the dish so that we now have a possibility of, I think, eight lines, and two of the extra four are connected to the DMR-BS850. For what it's worth, the TV signal through the Panny is stronger than through the Sky+ HD box. There was no need to buy another digibox or dish.

With regard to channels, I was surprised to find that, although a lot of HD channels aren't available on the Panny, there is at least one that is on there that isn't on Sky. BBC HD is on both, but ITV HD is only on Freesat, as far as I can see. Others may be able to give you more detail.

Has having all these lines weakened the signal? Not in the slightest, as far as I can see. Hope that helps.

[ramjet]

Originally Posted by chrisray

I'm no expert, kee124, but, based on my experience, you have nothing to worry about, subject to possibly spending a bit more money on your dish.

We have one dish, originally for Sky+ only. I then subscribed to Sky+ HD for downstairs use and had the Sky+ box moved upstairs to another telly. That used up the four lines on the dish. Later, I wanted to buy the DMR-BS850, mainly to go with my Panasonic HD camcorder. However, that would have been hard to justify if I couldn't use the two built-in Freesat tuners. So I contacted a local Sky dish installer (I didn't go anywhere near Sky themselves). They changed the box thing at the end of the dish so that we now have a possibility of, I think, eight lines, and two of the extra four are connected to the DMR-BS850. For what it's worth, the TV signal through the Panny is stronger than through the Sky+ HD box. There was no need to buy another digibox or dish.

With regard to channels, I was surprised to find that, although a lot of HD channels aren't available on the Panny, there is at least one that is on there that isn't on Sky. BBC HD is on both, but ITV HD is only on Freesat, as far as I can see. Others may be able to give you more detail.

Has having all these lines weakened the signal? Not in the slightest, as far as I can see. Hope that helps.

the box thingy is an lnb and it will have been changed from a quad ( 4 ) to an octo ( 8 ) with up to 8 separate cable feeds for your purposes

most HD channels are scrambled on astra 2 which is why you usually need a sky subscription , including ch4HD , and Luxe HD is also there

so if the dish has a single output lnb 9 the standard lnb ) it can be swapped for a dual (2 ) , a quad ( 4 ) or an octo ( 8 ) and have separate cables run in to the destination in the home

a lot of these boxes require at least 2 feeds , so one or two feeds is the norm for each device

[Steve N]

Originally Posted by chrisray

.....but ITV HD is only on Freesat .....

ITV HD is available on Sky now so long as you have the new EPG you can add it as a channel.